ese fundamental
principles have been established, it proceeds deductively to determine
what must result from them, without waiting to discover these truths by
observation.

Knowledge is thus complete just in proportion to the extension of its
scope through generalization. The higher the generalization, the more
inclusive will it be, and the _summum genus_, or the final
generalization, will be the highest attainable reach of knowledge. When
man can make no further generalization, his knowledge will be, in so
far, absolute and complete, and all that remains possible to him will be
the practical application of what he already knows. Perfect knowledge is
nothing but perfect generalization. The Supreme Intelligence being
hypothetically possessed of all knowledge, that is, having discriminated
the absolute _summum genus_, can proceed no further in this direction;
his intellectual activity must be exerted in a descending series, or
from the general towards the individual, and this process must be, as we
have seen above, by a determinate series of steps, fixed by the
operation of a definite law, which law proceeds by the successive
addition of attributes to the general.

Complete knowledge, being complete generalization, the lines of all
science will necessarily converge, as they approach this generalization,
until all sciences coalesce in one science, and all truth is reduced to
a single expression in the utterance of the final conception. In
accordance with the laws of thinking, this general term is reached by
successive omissions of particularizing attributes, until at last we
reach Being--the absolute _summum genus_, wholly free from individual
attributes, and thereby embracing everything possible to thought,
whether material or immaterial. But this _summum genus_ must be
predicable of this whole. Matter and mind may thus be reduced to a
single category, and the physical and the intellectual finally coalesce
in this last generalization. Materialism and idealism thus differ merely
in the degree of generalization reached--or rather they both agree in
avoiding the final generalization which identifies both matter and mind.
Materialism must always deal with the individual, for matter can appear
under no other form. Idealism must always rest upon the general, for
thought, to be thought, must state a generalization. Each, however,
finds its explanation in the other, and both are harmonized by the
application of the law of intel